NZUSA Deceives Its Own

UNION, Y U SO SNEAKY?

NZUSA has “reaffirmed” its stance in support of the Keep Our Assets referendum, claiming that supporting a referendum explicitly seeking a specific policy change does not amount to supporting said policy change.

Confusion arose when NZUSA Vice-President, Arena Williams
told Salient that member students’ association presidents had been consulted on NZUSA’s support for the campaign. However VUWSA President Bridie Hood, among others claimed the contrary, saying that the first they’d heard of NZUSA’s involvement was after receiving an invitation to the campaign launch days prior.

Salient again spoke to Williams, who now says the “miscommunication problem that occurred” was an issue with NZUSA’s policy process.

“Part of the policy process that we decided at the beginning of the year was that we were going to have informal discussions, and that we weren’t really going to have formal motions,” Williams said.

“We’ve now learnt our lesson, because obviously it wasn’t clear enough to Bridie and [MAWSA President Ben Thorpe] and the other people in the room that we were having a discussion about a policy point.”